A new study from Aberdeen Group, Boston, looks at order-to-delivery challenges faced by discrete manufacturers with multi-enterprise supply chains and points to best practices that can drive increased responsiveness and agility.
"In today's process outsourcing-intensive environment, it has become difficult for companies to stay informed and in control of every stage of their supply chains, as the responsibility has been spread throughout the network," says Viktoriya Sadlovska, supply chain analyst, and co-author of the report. "With the recent strong move towards more customer-driven supply chains, it is critical for companies to ensure network-wide agility and responsiveness."
Discrete manufacturers in the survey say the top two actions to achieve this goal are improved supply chain visibility and trading partner collaboration. The top two drivers for change cited by respondents are rising SCM costs and increasing customer demands.
The study finds that top performers have:
-- More flexible supply and demand networks -- More granular visibility and traceability across more supply chain and manufacturing processes -- A higher level of supply chain integration and B2B connectivity -- A higher level of manufacturing and supply chain process collaboration.
A copy of this report is available free of charge for a limited time at the URL below.
